Bryan Chaffin iLongPlay has announced the release of what appears to be the first non-Apple supplied iTunes LP release of an album. The company worked with Listen by Tryad, an album released by the group under the Creative Commons license, and developed a full iTunes LP version for release.
Tryad is a Paris-based band that records in English, and iLongPlay began working on the iTunes LP release without consulting the band (the Creative Commons license specifically allows use of the material by other parties wishing to add to it or build upon it). The result includes an iTunes LP version of the album with photos, videos, and credits.
iTunes LP was introduced by Apple during the September 9th media event. It is an enhanced format for complete albums that allows a band (or label) to add an interactive element to the release. Apple showed us lyric sheets, videos, interview videos, and interactive menus that all work to bring back something of that album experience to the digital world.
So far, only a few albums have been released through iTunes with the iTunes LP format - for instance The Doors: 40th Anniversary Mixes. iLongPlay is an independent design studio looking to carve out a business making iTunes LP releases for bands, thus the first project being a free one.
You can download the album from the iLongPlay Web site, and you can check out Tryad on FaceBook. We should note that it requires a fairly large screen resolution to view Listen in iTunes LP without scroll bars. The screenshot below was originally more than 1,200 pixels across, and is reduced to fit in our article.
Listen by Tryad Screenshot
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Tryad’s music is sort of etheral and haunting pop/rock. Their listed influences include Depeche Mode, Nine Inch Nails, Massive Attack, and The Beatles. I hear more Massive Attack than the other bands.
Also, this isn’t the best iTunes LP release we’ve seen. There’s not a lot of extra material here, but I think it’s awesome to see someone, anyone, outside of the major studios working on this.
As a band member myself, I’ve been working on figuring out how to get an LP version of our album on iTunes. The infrastructure isn’t there for the third party companies who put indie bands on iTunes, but it will come, and iLongPlay is a big step forward in this whole format concept.
Oh, and I love iTunes LP to begin with.